By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Timing is everything as the Fayetteville Planning Commission considers a proposed new zoning category during its business meeting Tuesday.

Commissioners will consider a proposed new PCD (Planned Community District) zoning category that would allow mixed-use, master-planned developments like The Village (see related story), without each segment having to be zoned separately.

If approved by both the Planning Commission and City Council, the new category would replace the city's PUD (Planned Unit Development) category.

In its original form, developed in the `60s and `70s, PUD zoning was designed to provide for master planning of communities, city planner Maurice Ungara told the Planning Commission during a work session last week. But over the years, that original purpose has been perverted, he said.

“It's basically been used to replace the variance process,” he said, “for projects as small as five acres.”

The proposed PCD category, he said, will allow developers flexibility so they can be more creative in designing large developments, with the trade-off that the city will have more control. “The zoning is attached to the property and includes anything associated with that development,” he said.

“It would require everything to be documented. Natural resources, historic resources, etc., all have to be taken into account,” he added.

Commissioners weren't quite convinced. “This is an ordinance written for a project,” commented commission member Allan Feldman.

Feldman said he is concerned that the proposed ordinance doesn't limit the density of developments. PUD zoning is tied to a given residential category, so that the overall number of homes in a project doesn't exceed the number allowed under that zoning. A mixture of lot sizes is allowed, but the average must meet the zoning.

Under the proposed PCD, Feldman said he is concerned that the final density would be left up to wrangling between developers and the Planning Commission.

“You would wind up in a battle royal over this thing,” he said. “What was wrong with the old PUD?”

But Ungara said the commission would still have control over density as part of the design approval process. “PCD is not something that you breeze through,” he said. “A great deal of work is done by staff, the commission and City Council” to control the final design, he said.

City leaders could, for instance, limit the number of homes to what would be allowed under the previous zoning, or use the land use plan as a guide, he said.

“I want something that would be ironclad as far as density is concerned,” said Feldman.

Several commissioners said they would meet individually with Ungara to try and understand the ordinance better before they vote on it Tuesday.